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Tuesday, September 10, 2013

If you are unfamiliar, Tour de Fat is an epic event hosted by New Belgium in a few cities across America every summer. It's like a carnival with beer and games and lots of bike love.

The focus of the event is presenting the city with their bike trader. A bike trader is a badass individual who gives up their car (donated to charity) in exchange for a new bike with the commitment to live car-free for a year.

Sound familiar now? Ashley was the Durham trader last year and has been chronicling her adventures here.

And this year, Jonathan took the leap and said goodbye to the echo and hello to a jamis. His blog (yes he's blogging!) is here.

So in June, New Belgium came to Durham and we celebrated the bike!

Even Chloe made the trip:

The day's events:

The crowd:

The stage:

Jonathan being presented:

Jonathan post presentation:

A jumbo game of connect-four:

And just general hanging out:

A couple of days after the event Jonathan went and picked out his mate -- a brand new jamis from the great team at oak city cycling:

If you don't know Hot Chicken, you haven't lived -- it's fried chicken that has marinated in a cayenne bath and then has a cayenne breading too. Served over white toast with pickles.

Per the usual it was delicious. This skin was hot and crunchy and the meat was tender and juicy. Incredible.

But that was just first dinner. After a bar with a delicious porter (yes it's july, yes we don't care), we had second dinner at Chuy's my favorite maker of tortillas. Seriously, I don't know what they put in their tortillas, (though I have a guess I just don't want to confirm it) but they are the best. So of course, I ordered a side of them. And I'm super pumped that Raleigh is getting their own location in October!

We headed to the lake the next day and hung out with the family for a few days and enjoyed all the usual fun - swimming, eating, playing cards, and more eating.

Then we went to Little Rock to meet up with the gang and take over Jake's house. Emmy was pleased.

We celebrated the Fourth and America at Jake's parent's house with some solid pool time and grilling.

It was a lovely vacation with my people and time away from work for a whole week!